The present disclosure relates generally to searching for text in two or more languages. The present disclosure more specifically relates to configuring a software application, such as a web browser or search engine, to search for text in multiple languages.
Webpages and other forms of electronic documents may be created using text in any number of written languages. The various written languages may also utilize disparate alphabets that may or may not contain the same characters. For example, the Spanish alphabet contains the same letters as that of English, with the additional letter, ñ. Some webpages or other electronic documents may also include text in multiple languages. For example, a webpage from Quebec, Canada, may include text in French and English, which are both official languages in Canada.
Fonts play a role in the representation of languages in electronic documents. For example, two websites may be in the same language, but utilize different font scripts to represent the symbols of the language. Attempts have been made to standardize the fonts used for a particular language in electronic documents. For example, the Unicode Standard includes standards for representing characters in a myriad of different languages. Fonts can also play a role in searching. Many text searching techniques involve matching a particular character in a particular font to the same character in the same font. This further increases the number of possible characters that can be searched, since characters may vary between languages or even within a particular language.